Year: 2011

Draft Reynolds 2012?

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“The people who think they’re smart enough, and morally superior enough, to run everyone else’s lives are risible. They’re not smart enough to run their own lives competently, and they’re actually, overall, morally inferior … They pursue power, and they exercise power, as much for deference as anything else.”
— Professor Glenn Reynolds

He’s got a good point. People who conspicuously crave power over others do not usually exercise power for good ends.

Outside of politics, we recognize that a desire to run other peoples’ lives — to boss them around — is the manifestation of a sadistic personality. Nobody likes a bully in real life and yet, in politics, we see how people acquire power by proclaiming that the rest of us are not competent to run our own lives and therefore need government to tell us what to do for our own good.

The Big Lie of liberalism is that liberals are morally superior to the rest of us merely because they’re liberals. Vote for them, and you can be morally superior, too! And then they’ll be bossing everyone around with your approval and permission.

To which I answer not just no, but hell no.

We should not give power to people who crave it so desperately. We should find someone who doesn’t want power and put them in charge.

GLENN REYNOLDS for PRESIDENT
Because It’s Saturday, and I Need the Traffic

UPDATE: The predictable Shermanesque response.

Normal blog etiquette, when linked by Instapundit, is to say, “Welcome, Instapundit readers!” But that seems rather redundant at this point, doesn’t it? So instead I’ll invite you to hit my tip jar, because it is, after all, Saturday. And my wife is sick.


GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

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Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun really wanted to believe Anthony Weiner was innocent . . .

But then I heard Weiner start to explain himself and everything changed. The more he talked, the more it became obvious that not only is the photo of him, but he sent it. . . .
“I think this is one of the worst public relations strategies regarding an embarrassing event for a public figure that I have witnessed,” writes Towson University communications professor Richard Vatz in an email about Weiner’s press interactions. “It is obviously a picture of him, taken for a possible variety of reasons, but his inelegant warding off of the inquiries should have instead been a refusal to engage the issue. That would not have solved the problem, but it would have lessened the humiliating spectacle which exacerbates his problems.” . . .
Weiner says he doesn’t want the police to investigate and tries to make the case that it would be a waste of federal dollars. (Let’s not forget that police are already paid salaries to investigate crimes.) The only reason that makes any sense why he doesn’t want the police to investigate is because he’s afraid they would find out that he sent the tweet and that his hacker claim is a lie. If he was truly hacked and publicly humiliated by a political opponent, he would want that person brought to justice.

Via AOSHQ Headlines. To explain the headline, for kids too young to remember when Doonesbury was funny:

And today’s Washington Post headline:

Who had the worst week in Washington?
With certitude, Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Don’t you feel sorry for the guy’s wife? The New York Post:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s humiliated wife sheepishly showed her face at a Washington event yesterday, keeping a stiff upper lip amid the swirling scandal surrounding her husband’s tawdry Twitter photo.
Huma Abedin, 34, briefly hesitated at the State Department ballroom door before working up the courage to go in — but she left after just five minutes and steered clear of her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Seriously, an investigation? Your penis didn’t rob the Bellagio.”

UPDATE: Lisa Graas has a theory, but doesn’t link my blog. Dan Collins has no theories, but does link my blog and, even though Dan’s name isn’t “Ace,” the name of the game here is Link My Blog.

So Dan wins that round, if you’re keeping score at home.

UPDATE II: Lisa Graas has now updated to link me, so she is now even with Dan “I’m Not Ace” Collins. Meanwhile, I’m also linked at King Shamus and POH Diaries — thanks!

UPDATE III: Now that we’re caught up on the Link My Blog game, let’s take a look at some other blogs, shall we?

Ladd Ehlinger Jr. scored an online interview with Dan Wolfe (a/k/a “PatriotUSA76”) whose anti-Weiner obsession explains why he was the first to re-Tweet the now-infamous crotch-shot.

The Smoking Gun has the goods on “GoatsRed,” who was ping-ponging anti-Weiner items on Twitter with PatriotUSA76. Let’s see: Foul-mouthed porn-forum moderator, twice bankrupt, IRS liens, domestic-violence rap sheet . . . .

Well, OK. And this is relevant how?

  1. You gotta be careful who you trust on the Internet; and
  2. People are wrong to think they can maintain multiple identities online, while engaging in atrocious online behavior, and that none of this can ever be connected to their real-life selves.

But this says nothing about the facts of the case in regard to whether Anthony Weiner’s been sending photos of his junk online, except perhaps that Weiner’s supporters are obsessed with the two Twitter users who busted Weiner.

UPDATE IV: It’s kind of weird that the three Weiner threads today on Memeorandum — here, here and here — are scattered up and down the page, rather than aggregated together. Memeorandum is basically run by an algorithmic formula, and I’m not sure what this odd pattern shows about how bloggers are aggregating the story. But I thought I’d point it out.

UPDATE V: Associated Press:

“Weiner Exposed.” “Weiner’s Pickle.” “Battle of the Bulge.”
Those were some of the tabloid headlines lampooning Rep. Anthony Weiner as he struggled to explain how a photo of a man’s crotch had been posted to his Twitter account. The normally media-savvy New York Democrat squandered his chance to make it right with a cringe-inducing TV blitz that raised more questions than it answered.
It’s a surprising turn for the pugnacious 46-year old Brooklyn native, who until this mess was widely seen as one of the smartest members of Congress.

“Surprising”? Maybe “ironic” would be a better word, but when you think about it, how often do smart guys turn out to be a lot less smart than they seem to be? Being smart, they become arrogant, then they start thinking the rules don’t apply to them and  then — bingo! — it all falls apart.

Isn’t that what happened to John Edwards, for example?

UPDATE VI: Linked by Dave C. and Republican Redefined — thanks!

What Da Tech Guy Said

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“That I would see something like this in an American city while survivors of the ovens are still alive is obscene.”

When I saw what Zombie posted at Pajamas Media, I was so profoundly shocked that I sent out the link on Twitter with a short headline, a link and “OMFG.” Then I tried to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up, I found I had more than 90 re-Tweets.

I’ve called the argument over circumcision “The World’s Most Idiotic Debate.” I wrote last month about the “Foreskin Fetishists” behind the anti-circumcision movement, including the attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco.

Now? They’re Foreskin Fascisti.

Jeff Goldstein: “Incidentally, when we said never again? We meant it.”

UPDATE: Moe Lane: “Andrew Sullivan is a noted anti-male circumcision advocate, which should tell you right there that they’re reliably nuts.”

Because I Know What’s News

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“Has there ever been more manufactured and phony hype about a certifiable non-issue than so-called WeinerGate?”
— John Guardiano, “Weinergate: What’s the Big Deal?” Frum Forum

Few things annoy me more than having my news judgment questioned. Disagree on policy or doubt me on politics — we might argue, but such arguments do not call into question my competence as a professional journalist. And, by God, after 25 years in the news business, I know what’s news.

So I don’t mind the good-natured kidding I get about being all-Weiner, all-the-time for an entire week. While I initially reacted to Anthony Weiner’s apparent Twitter faux-pas as a mere joke, as soon as I began researching the background of last weekend’s incident I realized, Hey, there’s a legit news story here.

What’s more, there was a perfect opportunity to get ahead of the story, because the mainstream media had been initially reluctant to report it. Saturday afternoon, I checked Google News and there was zero, zilch, nada from major news organizations. Yet I anticipated (correctly) how the story would develop, and so began hoovering up every fact I could find online and aggregating every tidbit of information other bloggers were reporting.

Simple fact: Weiner is from New York, home of America’s best tabloid press. If you thought the NY Post and the Daily News weren’t going to make this front-page news, you’re crazy. And while no one could have predicted the spectacular awfulness of Weiner’s Tuesday press-conference meltdown, once it happened, it was blood-in-the-water time.

The story continues to develop. CNN’s Dana Bash reports Democrats are unsatisfied with Weiner’s response to the scandal so far:

Members of the House Democratic leadership have talked repeatedly to Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York, to try to get him to end what several Democrats call an unwelcome political distraction, a member of the party’s leadership tells CNN.
“It’s frustrating because we’ll talk to him, and say clean it up, and then he goes out and does stuff,” said the member of the House Democratic leadership, who declined to speak for the record about private discussions with Weiner.
“He’s got to put the period at the end of the sentence,” said the Democratic source, “it’s painful.”

And the story’s the same in the New York Post:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s onetime Democrat allies were quick to abandon the lawmaker yesterday, just hours after he admitted it certainly could be his bulging crotch shot that was sent to a cute co-ed from his Twitter account.
Party backers in New York and Washington publicly criticized the randy rep’s attempts at damage control and his inability to shake the scandal. . . .
And in a major blow, some pols said outright that Weiner has crushed his dream of becoming the Big Apple’s next mayor — and may even have undermined the next election for his Brooklyn-Queens congressional seat, which he has held for six terms.
“Something like this better be put to rest,” said power broker Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic chairman.
“If it’s left outstanding, it could have damaging impact, even if it means the difference of 3 or 4 percent of the vote in a very competitive four-way or five-way race,” Lopez said about Weiner’s chances in a mayoral contest.

You see what I’m talking about? As silly or as trivial as the whole situation may seem, Weiner has painted himself into a corner and it’s hard to see a good way for him to get out of it. Here’s an Associated Press video:

The one way out is the way Weiner has refused to take — call the cops:

There’s one way Rep. Anthony Weiner could show that he didn’t send a salacious photo to a female college student from his Twitter account: Ask law enforcement to investigate.
The New York congressman has so far declined to ask for an investigation into the photo, saying it’s not a worthy use of government resources. The U.S. Capitol Police said it would not launch an investigation unless requested.
In asking a private security firm to investigate instead, Weiner won’t be able to prove his innocence by obtaining logs from Twitter showing where his account was accessed from. Twitter says it requires a subpoena or court order to hand over such information. A subpoena or court order would have to be initiated by police or the FBI, not private detectives.

And, with hat-tips to Ace of Spades and Iowahawk, here’s the latest viral video sensation:

Finally, all the possibilities surrounding the role of “@PatriotUSA76” in WeinerGate are hashed out by Ace of Spades.

UPDATE: Simple explanation:

I’m a girl. I’ve been on Twitter over two years. I know exactly what happened. . . .

Read the whole thing. What’s up with guys getting drunk and tweeting their junk? Is it really that common?

PREVIOUSLY:


This Just In: Obamanomics Sucks

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Are folks on Wall Street finally figuring out what the folks on Main Street have known for two years?

U.S. stocks fell Friday to cap their first five-week losing streak since July 2004, as a dismal jobs report added to the drumbeat of investor concerns about a slowing economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 97.29 points, or 0.8%, to 12151.26, led lower by Alcoa, which dropped 28 cents, or 1.7%, to $15.92. The blue-chip index has dropped 5.1% during its five-week losing skid and closed Friday at its lowest level since March 23.
Friday’s declines come after the DJIA had slumped 321 points in back-to-back sessions. The average registered its biggest three-day drop since March 16.

Meanwhile, the D.C. press corps — which would be crediting Obama as a miracle worker if the economic picture was looking up — must instead endeavor to exculpate him from blame:

What can Obama do to fix
the economy? Not much.
— Politico

See how this works? You can be sure that if a Republican were in the White House and unemployment was at 9.1%, there wouldn’t be any “Don’t blame the president” headlines in the newspapers. Here’s a video report from Associated Press:

Wow! Strange Plot Twists in #WeinerGate’s Third Act

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A sentence you won’t see me write very often: Tommy Christopher has done some excellent reporting.

Tommy’s story about @PatriotUSA and a 16-year-old girl who (falsely) claimed her friend was involved in Twitter “sexting” with Rep. Anthony Weiner is an absolute must-read. (BTW, Mediaite has posted Tommy’s story as five different pages, without a “single page view” or “print all” function, which annoys me, but that’s not Tommy’s fault.) One quote that stood out to me was this:

“I saw many other girls in the news and I wanted to be famous.”

Yeah. The desire to get fame for fame’s sake — fame without talent, fame without achievement, fame you don’t actually have to work for — is one of the great evils of our age. Nowadays, I’m often reminded of a line from Gone With the Wind, where Scarlett O’Hara says of one of her envious rivals: “She’d walk down the street naked if she thought anybody would look twice at her.” But we’ll save Ginger Lee for later . . .

I should probably write an essay about the underlying lesson here: How inexperienced, irresponsible and unscrupulous people, trying to play citizen-journalist, muck things up for everybody else in the “Army of Davids.” On the other hand, maybe we wouldn’t have this problem if the regular media could be trusted to do their job with minimal competence and fairness.

The statements from the girls and one of the girls’ parents are, I think, subject to criticism, but I will leave that to others for now. The failure of Markos Moulitsas to respond promptly to Tommy Christopher’s e-mail warnings is also likely to get enough criticism from others without me jumping on the dogpile.

Responsible reporting requires a sense of news judgment, even if that sometimes means foregoing a possible scoop.

Last Saturday, when the WeinerGate story first broke, some people sent me DMs or e-mails with phone numbers for Gennette Cordova and I thought to myself: Should I call? Continue reading Wow! Strange Plot Twists in #WeinerGate’s Third Act →

Unexpectedly! Unemployment Hits 9.1%

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“U.S. hiring slowed dramatically in May and the unemployment rate kept rising, adding to concerns the jobs market will take years to heal as the economy remains weak. . . . . The jobless rate . . . unexpectedly rose to 9.1% . . .”
— Wall Street Journal

“May’s job gain was about a third of what economists had been forecasting. . . . ‘The economy clearly just hit a brick wall,’ said Paul Ashworth, chief United States economist at Capital Economics. ‘It’s almost as if it came to a complete standstill.’”
— New York Times

Why is it that economists — at least the “expert” economists who do all this forecasting for the media — have been so reliably surprised by bad news the past couple of years? And where do the media find these idiotic financial journalists like the guy who, as The Lonely Conservative notes, tried to blame U.S. unemployement on the Japanese tsunami?

It’s almost enough to make you think that the people who run the media are unusually stupid.

More at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain just issued a statement:

While this administration promised job creation and an unemployment rate under 8 percent with the passage of the stimulus spending packages, based upon today’s unemployment report, the unemployment rate still hovers around 9 percent. We have yet to see the positive results from the billions of taxpayer dollars spent in that process.
Wednesday’s jobs figure shows only 38,000 new private sector jobs were created, a number significantly less than the projected 177,000 in previous forecasts. Experience has taught me that government cannot create jobs. Instead, government is responsible for creating a favorable environment for businesses to thrive and succeed.
If we are to fix this problem,we must focus our efforts on increasing access to capital and availability of new markets, adjusting unfavorable regulations for corporations and, in many instances, retooling and retraining our workforce.
It’s time we have a discussion about real job creation and what must be done to raise consumer confidence and create stability in the marketplace. Real results are needed now.

Brutal. Simply Brutal.

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Something I hadn’t previously noticed is how Rachel Maddow employed the word “creep” against Anthony Weiner:

(Hat-tip: PoliticalPAW.) Meanwhile, the latest spin on WeinerGate provokes Ace of Spades to lay down an incredibly brutal interrogation on the Prime Suspect — an instant blogospheric classic.

And, yeah, I’ve got a new WeinerGate column up at The American Spectator that includes props for Ace and Andrew Breitbart, which I hope you’ll go read.